


Let's Play A Game

by Quillsandcoffee



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillsandcoffee/pseuds/Quillsandcoffee
Summary: Eddie has a cold and Richie assures him that he’s not going to die in typical Tozier fashion.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Let's Play A Game

Eddie was going to die of hypothermia.

He was certain of it. He had checked his pulse and his temperature only about a million times that day and he had spent the last half hour researching symptoms. He had a runny nose, a fever, and he couldn’t stop shaking. When he called up Richie to say his goodbyes, he found not sympathy but instead amusement.

“You’re not going to die,” Richie assured him. A couple of minutes ago he had been lounging on his bed in preparation for reading some dirty magazines he had garnered from the convenience store, but this was much more interesting. “You probably just have a cold or something.”

“A cold is only the first step to hypothermia,” Eddie warned him gravely. He paced up and down his bedroom, wrapped in about a million layers. In the background, hot water was running for a bath. “First it’s a cold then you start to feel a slight tingle in your body and then your limbs have all fallen off. It’s a slippery slope, Richie! A slippery slope!”

“Fine, fine,” Richie said, rolling his eyes on the other end. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll come over there and together we’ll figure this out. This, which will probably be nothing. Because you’re not dying and you don’t have hypothermia.”

“Actually, denying hypothermia is a very common symptom of hypo—”

Richie hung up the line before he had to listen to another rant on the subject. He kicked the dirty magazines off his bed, going over to grab his shoes and coat. “Maybe another time, Jennifer’s boobs. Maybe another time.”

He slid off the bed and went to go assure his boyfriend that he was not going to die at the humble age of fifteen.

Richie’s hands were warm and Eddie reluctantly fell back into the embrace. There had been a solid five minutes in the beginning where he wouldn’t even let Richie get near him, but after the other boy had assured him that hypothermia was not contagious he suspiciously relented. Eddie let out a gentle sigh as Richie cuddled into the back of his neck, his arms clamped tightly around his middle.

“Okay,” he said, smiling softly. “I will admit, this is helping.”

“I told you.” Richie grinned triumphantly. “Tozier hugs make everything better.”

Eddie didn’t respond, his eyebrows furrowed in a way that said something was bothering him. Richie sighed, waiting for the inevitable. “I’m still pretty sure I have hypothermia though.”

“For the last time, if you had hypothermia, you would be dead right now,” Richie grumbled. “Though I could speed the process up if you don’t shut about it.” He playfully bit the other boy’s earlobe and Eddie shrieked, reaching back a hand to smack him.

“Not funny.”

“Eds, do you actually believe you have hypothermia?”

Eddie was silent for a moment. “No, I guess not. That doesn’t mean I can’t worry about it though.”

Richie pulled away, much to the disappointment of Eddie, and kneeled on the bed so that he was facing him. “Alright, I’ll prove it to you. Sit up.”

Eddie slowly uncurled from his roly-poly position and sat opposite him. “What are you going to do?”

Richie reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. “Give me your hand.”

Eddie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Um, how about no? What are you going to do?”

“Do you trust me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Eddie. Edward. Eds. C’mon.”

Eddie rolled his eyes back to the ceiling, but eventually held out his hand. Richie grabbed it, turning it so that just his index finger was pointing out. He took a penny and carefully balanced it on top. Then he sat back and waited.

Eddie let a couple seconds go by before he asked, “Okay, so? I can balance a penny on my finger. What does this prove?”

“You’re not shivering,” Richie pointed out. Eddie paused as he realized this was true. “ It’s the first symptom of hypothermia. If you were shivering, the penny would have fallen.”

“So I’m not shivering,” Eddie scoffed. “That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe I’m in stage three.”

“I wasn’t finished. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and I need you to answer me rapid fire, okay? How long have we been dating?”

“What are you talking about—”

“Rapid fire, remember?”

Eddie fixed him with a look. “Approximately one year now.”

“Specifically?”

“I don’t know…” Eddie racked his brain. “I guess nine months? Like, nine and a half maybe?”

“Good. What was the first nickname I was assigned when we started school?”

“Bucky Beaver? Because of your—”

“Big front teeth, whatever,” Richie cut him off, flushing. “Bad Question, okay. What is two times seven.”

“Fourteen.”

“What is the capitol of Argentina?”

“What—I don’t know!”

“Fair point,” Richie agreed. “I don’t know that either. That was a test though, and you passed!”

Eddie crossed his arms. Often he found himself annoyed with Richie’s antics but it was even worse now that he didn’t know what was going on. “What was the test? How fast can you piss off Eddie Kaspbrak?”

“You love me,” Richie said cheekily, booping his nose. Eddie smacked his hand away, flushing violently. “And no, that was not in fact the purpose of the test. You just evaded two more symptoms, confusion and memory loss.”

“Oh.” Despite himself, Eddie found that Richie’s game was working. He was calmer now, and though he still felt like crap he was starting to agree that the symptoms were far different from hypothermia. “What’s the next test?”

Richie beamed, happy that Eddie was on board now. He never minded helping his boyfriend out of a funk, but if he was going to do so he liked to do it in typical Trashmouth style. “It’s simple. I want you to say, ‘I love Richie Tozier.’”

Eddie snorted, rolling his eyes. “Right. How exactly is that relevant? I thought we already covered memory loss.”

“Just do it,” Richie demanded, waving a hand expectantly.

Eddie took a deep breath, leaning his head back. “I love Richie Tozier. There.” He was trying to glare at him, but there was a small smile tugging at his lips despite himself. It was impossible sometimes to resist Richie’s ridiculousness. “Are you happy?”

Richie was. No matter how many times Eddie said it, he never got tired of hearing those words. “Yes. Almost.”

Richie clambered off the bed and grabbed a notebook and pen off the dresser. He threw them at Eddie, pushing up his glasses. “Now write it.”

“God Richie, how much self-validation do you need?”

Richie blushed, but kept his tone cocky as he said, “More than you could possibly know. Just write it, will you?”

Eddie sighed and made a show of dramatically flourishing the pen and setting them to paper, each stroke deliberate and elaborate. And Eddie said he was extra. When he was finished, he showed the paper to Richie, where in neat legible letters it read, I love Richie Tozier. “Does this do it for you? Do you want me to put a little kiss next to it as well?”

“Shut it. You’re just lashing out because you know it’s true.” Richie took the paper, shoving it in his pocket for later. Okay yeah, so maybe Richie was going to stare at the words for hours that evening, but could you really blame him? “The next two symptoms were slurred speech and fumbling hands. You just disproved both. Now there’s just one more test.”

“Just one?”

“Just the one. I need you to close your eyes for it, though.”

Instantly nerves flooded Eddie’s body and he crossed his arms protectively. “No way. How do I know you won’t do something weird?”

Richie held up one of his hands in mock salute. “I won’t do anything, I promise—Scout’s honor.”

Eddie bit his lip, thinking it over. Finally he relented, squeezing his eyes shut. For a couple minutes nothing happened and Eddie was almost worried that Richie had left him alone and this whole thing was some kind of stupid prank. “Are you going to do anything or—”

His next sentence broke off as hands slid under his shirt suddenly, sliding up the stretched skin of his back. He tensed, a deer frozen in headlights. He could feel the heat of Richie’s body as he slowly wrapped him in a hug, the form very familiar to him by now. Richie softly peppered kisses up his neck and paused inches away from his ear. A pleasant shudder ran down Eddie’s spine when Richie spoke, his breath sending miniature vibrations over his skin.

“How do you feel?”

Eddie was frozen. “Huh?”

“Wide awake? Like you’re never gonna sleep again?”

He did. In fact, Eddie had never felt more awake in his life. “Y-Yeah? I suppose. Why?”

“Then you just beat the last symptom—drowsiness.” Richie leaned down suddenly, blowing a raspberry against his neck and causing Eddie to shriek, shoving him off of him.

“Oh you asshole,” he growled, grabbing a pillow and beating the taller boy with it. Richie ducked, holding up a hand weakly to protect himself. “That was unfair and you know it. What happened to Scout’s honor?”

“I forgot to mention,” Richie said, seizing the pillow and launching his own attack. “I was never a Scout.”

“You dick—”

Richie only laughed and the night slowly devolved into pillow fights and madness.

Not that Eddie minded.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at my tumblr: https://crookswithbooks.tumblr.com/


End file.
